THE LIME TREE. 



95 



six to eight feet in circumference ; bearing again in 

 their turn three or four upright limbs, like so many- 

 young trees, and reminding the beholder of pros- 

 perous colonies, at once supported by, and adding to 

 the importance of their mother country. It must 

 have been some such object that suggested to the 

 fervid imagination of Milton his beautiful description 

 of the fig-tree. 



" ■ Such as at this day (to Indians known, 



In Malabar or Deccan,) spreads her arms 

 Branching so broad and long, that in the ground 

 The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow ' 

 About the mother-tree, a pillar'd shade 

 High over-arch'd, and echoing walks between : 

 There oft the Indian herdsman, shunning heat, 

 Shelters in cool and tends his past'ring herds 

 At loop-holes cut through thickest shade." 



Paradise Lost, B. 9, 1200. 



The age of the Moor Park Lime-tree is not exactly 

 known ; but it is at this present period in the most 

 vigorous state of luxurious growth, and has every 

 promise of attaining a much larger size. Its circum- 

 ference on the ground is twenty-three feet three 

 inches ; at three above, it is seventeen feet six 

 inches ; its branches extend one hundred and 

 twenty-two feet in diameter, and cover three hun- 

 dred and sixty feet in circumference. It is nearly 

 a hundred feet in height, and contains, by actual 

 measurement, eight hundred and seventy-five feet 

 of saleable timber. 



